My head was swimming with ideas when I
rolled out of bed this morning, and I've been trying to keep a handle
on them until I could sit down and get them all out. That happens
sometimes. I normally try to compose this blog with a certain
continuity with an echo of the long lost and rarely read essay.
This morning, though, I want to hit the
highlights, keep it simple, and move on.
First of all, I want to thank
Grindbone brother Kaplowitz (iamkap.blogspot.com)
for bringing me onto the 2nd edition of his blogspot radio
broadcast. Although the format is uber-brief, we kept it lively and
hit a few high water marks. Among them:
- I like offensive people – or, at any rate, smart people who try to offend either to educate or make fun of the unenlightened.
- I would rather be a poor and despised writer than a desperate college instructor.
- Writing cannot be taught, only encouraged.
It's on this last point that I want to
riff first, just a bit.
To all my friends who are still
ensconced in higher education, and particularly those who take on the
largely thankless quest to teach First Year or Basic Writing:
I am not saying that you are, or that I
was, irrelevant. So much of what writing teachers do on a daily basis
ends up being a drawn out argument to justify their existence...
which is part of the larger problem. A good teacher knows when to get
out of the way and let the educational moment run on its own
momentum; the bad ones think it somehow has something to do with
them.
And since I have laboriously and
copiously recorded my issues with higher education, I'll just say
this: the problem with education at all levels is two-fold:
- There are too many fucking lackeys and weasels (Please consult your Parsons Dictionary of Often Used Words and Phrases, Desk Reference Edition) micro-managing the educational process, and they are being supported by myopic textbook publishers with a Wal-Mart mentality.
- The educational process in this country has been derailed by the profit motive – students being corralled into “careers” (aka turning them into trained monkeys who pay taxes so that our corporate overlords don't have to), public schools teaching testing instead of concepts and the foundations of critical thinking, and colleges and universities taking up the for-profit education model pioneered by the University of Phoenix.
The corporate influence on education
in this country was unavoidable, however, since our corporate
overlords have had their fingers in everything for a very long time.
The mistake, often made by people who have been taught a sanitized
view of history, is in believing, that the relatively recent
incarnation of the multi-national corporation is the culprit.
They aren't. They're merely the
inheritors.
Corporate influence on American life
and politics reaches much further back. The 1920's, the Robber
Barons, and the Wall Street Bankers that brought on the Great
Depression? (Hmm....) Sure. But look farther. Post- World War 1 coal
companies that used racism divide workers and keep unions from
forming? Sure. Look back even further. Railroad Companies? Yep. Keep
looking. Civil War munitions manufacturers? Yes. Slavery? Yes.
Get the point? I'm leaving out some
important players in the leaching of America, but you're getting the
point? I'd be willing to bet that since Adam Smith wrote his
Capitalist Treaty, there's been some monger trying to get one over by
exploiting the work done by other people.
And before you get all horrified,
deified, homogenized, and needlessly terrified, let me point out that
large scale Capitalism – the massing of capital by exploiting the
labor and resources of others – is not the same thing as someone
who owns and operates a business. Entrepreneurs succeed by their own
sweat. Capitalists succeed on the sweat of others.
This brings me to recent events –
the Occupy Wall Street Movement and it's various echo movements
across the country. The problem I have is that I live so far off
the beaten track that I have to rely on posted video clips and some
eye witness accounts that may or may not be legitimate. Getting news
online means dealing with spurious sources, trolls, moles,
dunderheads, and those well-intended transmitters of information that
get lost in the sea of bullshit.
Not surprisingly, the corporate owned
media (Disney owns ABC, GE owns NBC, and CBS is a monster all its
own. And don't forget News Corp and Viacom. For a list of who's
feeding you your news, see this chart)
isn't really covering the movement – and yes, I feel pretty
confident in calling it that – even though there's clear evidence
of something. But, here in the Big Empty, that grand land called the
Midwest, it's easy to ignore the movements that may (or may not) help
redefine the future.
All I do know is that from what I can
tell, I like it.